Rebound: Chris Halliwell Chronicles (Book 1)
by CasualCat
Summary: After his mother's death, Chris struggles to find her killers. On that search, he will discover a lot more than he was hoping to find.
1. Disclaimers

I do not own Charmed or any of the characters, I only own the plot of this fanfiction

English is not my first language, but I'll try my best for there not to be any mistakes

This story is still un-edited, it has 3 parts and I'll edit each part as a whole as soon as it's finished

This is the first book in the Chris Halliwell Chronicles (I have no idea how many books there will be, I have the ideas for 3 books, and if they go well there will be more)


	2. Chapter 1

For the last 35 days, I've been waking up to the empty house. I still can't get used to this silence. The house looks the same way it did when she was alive. I couldn't bring myself to move anything from its place, because, this way, it felt like the part of my mother's soul was still there. My mind still can't grasp the fact that she's gone. It feels like she could walk through the front door right now, and it would be just like any other day: she's come tired from her job and get straight to cooking dinner – mom has always loved cooking, it was one of her biggest dreams to own a restaurant someday. And even though we rarely ever talked before dinner I still miss that part of the day. I miss knowing that she's there now that she's not. I miss her yelling at me every morning and I'd give anything if her voice, even the angry one, could fill this silence that fell over me in the last month or so.

I walk into the kitchen and start preparing myself a breakfast, meaning, I make myself a sandwich. Mom would kill me if she knew. But she doesn't. And she never will. I've been eating like this since she dies, I just couldn't stand to be in the kitchen long enough to make a normal meal. It was her place, and every time I stand by the sink I imagine her cooking dinner in that same place. Really, I can't stand being in any room in this house for too long because I keep imagining her and how it was while she was here.

It's scary how losing someone can change your life, send you into this obsessive pit of imagining how it would be if the person you loved came back, how everything would be alright. But they don't come back and you have to keep spending your days without them.

It's even harder when the person who dies was one of the only people in your life. I only ever knew my mother. My father left when I was a baby and I never had any brothers or sisters, not even cousins. Mom had one sister, Prue, but she died before I was even born. I never knew much about two of them. I don't know how aunt Prue died or why my father left. But it never mattered. They weren't there. Only me and mom.

When they told me that mom died I was devastated. Actually, that's weak term. I was so broken that, even under drugs, I couldn't calm down, I couldn't think or breathe from holding back tears, I couldn't sleep for nights. Sometimes, I still can't. Even though it's getting better every day, somehow, at the same time, it's not. It's not getting easier, I am just getting used to it, to the fact that my mother is gone. I spent some time hating her for leaving me alone, but it wasn't her fault and I knew it. I spent some time hating my father too, for leaving both me and mom. Hatred didn't solve anything so I suppressed it. I stopped hating mom for dying. I still hate my father for leaving, but that hate is buried on the bottom of my heart where it will always exist.

I make my way through the house to my room upstairs. I pass many closed doors that haven't been opened in a month because I couldn't gather the strength to do so. Letting go is a hard thing to do, it takes a lot of emotional stability that I don't have. Her clothes and things should be sorted out but I just can't bring myself to open that wand now, I won't be able to do that anytime soon. Maybe I'll never be able to do so. First, because I would imagine her wearing every piece of clothing that I take out of her closet. Second, I couldn't get rid of her stuff, or even just put them in the boxes and move them to the attic. It would feel too much like getting rid of all her traces, and I'm just not ready to do so. I'll never be ready to do so. It's not that I am a materialist, it's just that her clothes and stuff all have significance. I'll see her purple t-shirt and I'll remember that one absolutely normal day when she came to pick me up from school and on the ride home we listened to the radio. Even though that day wasn't special it's hard to know that I'll never get that back, those normal, insignificant moments that can mean the world.

The day that she died was a hell for me. A police officer, a friend of mom's, came to my house to tell me that mom was in an accident and she didn't survive it. I didn't believe him. I told him to stop joking and when he said nothing I started begging, then yelling, and, in the end, crying. Then I lost it. It was like I have sunk so deep into the black that I couldn't see what I was doing or hear what I was saying, let alone control any of that. After that temporary inability to feel anything, I felt everything. Then they gave me drugs and numbness took me over for some time, but you can only postpone pain for so long.

I barely remember her funeral, I spent most of it holding back tears and staring at the tombstone that read:

 _Here lays_

 _Piper Halliwell_

 _Beloved mother, wife, sister and a friend_

Those words weren't true. Yes, mom had a sister, but she's been dead for 20 years now so she's not really grieving for mom. Also, mom was never really big on _friends_ , she had a few of them, but she rarely hung out with anyone. The _wife_ part is the biggest lie that was ever written in the stone. If he really cared for her or loved her, he would've at least come to her funeral. I hoped for it. I hoped that he would come back, but not for mom's funeral. For me. But he never did. So I guess he doesn't care. I guess he never did.

The picture of her body in the casket still haunts me. She looked like some horror movie creature that came out of hell to kill a bunch of teenagers who decided to go for a walk in the woods at the night of Friday of 13th. They say it was a car accident but it doesn't look like that. Her left hand was scorched and turned into the pile of ashes that was still connected to the arm due to some miracle. And her face. It has a claw mark. Yes, it's possible that that the shattered glass had cut her, but it's too patterned. It doesn't look like random shreds of glass could make that cut. It looked too much like a claw mark like she was scratched by some kind of a wild animal. It looks like something killed her.

I walk into my room. It's the only place in the house where I can spend my time without being hurt by the memories so much. The dark blue walls are all empty except for one. Right next to the door is my witness wall, which serves the same purpose as a witness board, except that I don't have a witness board so I am forced to improvise. I open the window and the morning sun fills the room. I walk to my witness wall and I stay there thinking for an hour before I leave for the school.


	3. Chapter 2

After mom died school became even bigger torture than it ever was. Not only did I have to survive through the classes and tests, now I had to deal with people and their empathy. Before mom died I wasn't really social, I was rarely the one to start a conversation, and when I did end up in one it would usually be short-lived. After mom died I actually had to start avoiding people. It was more for their sake than for mine. They always asked me if I was alright, and I always told them that I was, just to shut them up. I wasn't alright. But even if I did tell them the truth, what would happen? They wouldn't be able to fix anything and they'd only end up feeling bad for me. And that feels like a stab in the stomach.

It's even worse when everybody obviously avoids using words _mom, dad_ or _family_ around you so that you don't get hurt. That makes me mad. Not because they are pitying me, even though that feels bad too. No, it makes me mad that hearing those words would actually hurt me, even though I would never admit to that. It makes me mad that they are right about it.

Every day became the same for me. I would sit in classes and trace across the pages of a notebook trying to figure out who killed my mother. I went through countless theories, I thought of animals, psychotic serial killers, even Satanists performing some ritual. Everybody kept telling me that it was just an accident but I never believed it. Not even for a moment. Because if it was an accident, she wouldn't die. She would fight to stay with me. And she would've won.

After second period I got called to the councilor's office. I walked I know what this will be about. The small office got it to sense of space from the giant window on one of the perfectly white walls. In the middle of the room was a table with chairs set on both of its lengthier sides. In one of them sat a woman in her late thirties. Her blond hair with a few gray strakes here and there was tied in a low hanging ponytail. She wore a white blouse with a floral pattern on its sleeves. I sat on the other chair and avoided meeting her eyes, instead I looked at a shelf behind her. "Christopher", her voice was filled with that adult sound that I hate. That _I understand_ the thing. No, you don't, you really don't. Trust me, you don't understand. Adults always think that they do, but they don't. They understand themselves, not me. It's really frustrating. They know that there is something wrong but they can't actually do anything to fix it so their solution to every problem is to just get over it, as it was that easy to do. The worst part is that they all think it's an overreaction, that I'm just being too emotional.

"Chris, I understand that you are hurting, I do", there it is. What I knew she was going to say, and I knew how she was going to say it. Softly, like she's talking to a five-year-old kid, not seventeen years old boy.

"It's a horrible tragedy, I get that", she goes on, the tone of her voice not changing for a moment, "but you can't let that affect your grades so much".

The thing about adults is, they just can't get their priorities right.

"It's your future Chris", she keeps talking. For a moment I manage to look her into eyes. What I see is cold-hearted logic. She doesn't even try to understand me, she just wants to read me and use that information for pushing me the way she wants me to go. It's like she's playing a game of chess and not talking to a boy who recently lost the only family that he's ever known.

"…and your grades have dropped dramatically", I come back from my thought, unaware of the fact that she's been talking this whole time, still in the same tone of voice.

"Chris", she says a bit louder and leans in closer, "are you listening to me?".

People tend to expect you to listen to them but they never really listen to you.

"Yeah, I am", I say focusing on her once again.

"Good", she goes back to that monotonous voice, "some professors noticed that you rarely talk to the other students"

"Yeah, I'm not really talkative, never have been", I say trying not to sound too arrogant.

"I just thought that at this time you could use some people around you", she says and makes a pause. She just stares at me for a silent moment, probably trying to figure out if I got her point. I did. And she's wrong. I nod in agreement and she keeps talking.

I don't know for how long she talks, but after the first bell I stand up, thank her for her help, tell her how I'll pay more attention to my classes, then leave for English.

I sit at my desk even before the class starts and use my pencil to circle around the first empty page of my notebook, I start thinking about the way mom died again. When the second bell rings people start walking in and taking their places.

"Hey Chris", Tristan Grace says as he sits in front of me.

"Hey Tristan", I say. I know Tristan since the third grade. He is one of the rare people I consider my friends. Right now, he's pretty much the only one I consider to be my friend and the only person in school who I can stand talking to.

"So, how was your talk with Mrs. Lahey", he asks turning to me. Strands of his curly brown hair fall over his forehead and almost fully cover it.

"Nothing special", I say shifting my focus from his hair to his hazel brown eyes, "she talked, I pretended to listen".

At that moment the professor walked in and I looked down at my notebook to notice that I have accidentally written Tristan's name on the edge of the page. I quickly scribble the name over and turn the page. I try to concentrate on the lecture for a few minutes but I go back to making murder theories. I look up a few times only to get greeted by the back of Tristan's head, then I shift my focus back to the mess I made on the pages. With the few whips of an eraser, the page is blank again. Then, of course, I go into making a metaphor about scribbled pages and erasers, about how you need just one little thing to make all those lines that were created by mistake disappear, and then you can start again.

After the class is over I walk out and Tristan catches up with me. "Wait, Chris", he says while putting his hand on my shoulder. "Don't hate me now", his voices becomes softer and filled with guilt, and I know what is about to come, "but I had to ask you how are you dealing with everything?". His gaze is fixed on me.

I brush off that question off as always: "I'm fine". But he doesn't give up.

"Look, your mom died, it's okay for you to feel sad", he says softly. I look at him to see that his expression is still the same. Everyone else would have that _oh-no-what-have-i-done_ face after saying word _mom_ or _dead_. And even though I hate to admit it, hearing those words get my whole body to feel uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I know", I sigh, and then I lie, "I'm getting better".

"That's good, but just know that if you ever need to talk to someone…", instead of finishing that sentence he throws me a weak smile before making his way into the classroom. For a moment I stand there and stare at him as he takes his seat.


	4. Chapter 3

After school, I head to the police station. I go there every day to talk to the investigators about mom's death. They always tell me to stop overthinking it, that it was an accident and that that's all there's to it. And that, even if it was a murder, catching the killer wouldn't change anything.

The station looks almost like a regular building meant for living. Symmetrically placed windows, a grayish color that had faded over time, the only thing that in any way pointed out that it's a police station was a giant board hung over the front doors. I walk in to be greeted with dirty yellow walls and the bunch of people standing there and looking concerned or angry. Nobody paid attention to me so I made my way through the hallway and started looking for inspector Jacobs. I found him in his office where he was looking through some files.

"Hi, hello Ms. Jacobs", I come closer to his table. I peek at the files hoping they'd be my mom's, but they were about some guy named Jason Robinson.

"Christopher", inspector Jacobs said flatly, not looking up from his files even for a moment. He was new to the job, got it just a few months ago, so he was still trying his best. He wears a black suit, perfectly ironed and his short black hair is flawlessly groomed. He has a soft face line, the only thing standing out is his blue eyes. I wouldn't give him more than 27 years.

"What theory will you present me today?", he says putting the files away and looking up at me. He sounds tired. I get that I am being really boring, and I get that he believes that her death was an accident, but I can't stop trying to prove it wasn't. If I do, no one else will do it.

"I actually don't have anything today", I say quietly, "I was hoping that we could go through the files again". Silence takes over the small office, I can hear the sound of traffic through the open window. When inspector Jacobs doesn't answer for a while I start studying the walls covered in wood.

"Look, Chris", the inspector says sighing, "I get that this is hurting you". I prepare myself for another one of those lectures about how I am overthinking all of this. "Please just try to forget this murder thing, at least for a while", he says using that irritating tone of voice. The voice that says _kid, just let it go_. "I'm sure you have other problems", he continues, "maybe focus on them for some time". I let his words hang in the air, and when I don't answer he keeps talking. "Did you re-think living with your grandfather, it would be good for you to have some family around you".

"No, I can't live with him", I say, "I mean, I love him, but I just can't live with him". The thing is after mom died social services looked for my father, and when they couldn't find him my grandfather took custody of me. I was supposed to live with him, but I couldn't. He is the best grandpa ever and I have always loved him, but after mom died it became too painful for both of us to be in the same room for too long, let alone live in the same house. He sends me money and calls pretty much every day to check up on me, but we living with him would hurt both of us too much.

"Alright", the inspector said in a tired voice, "did you try looking for your father?".

"No", I said, suddenly feeling kind of the burning ache in my chest, "and I don't think that I ever will". He never looked for me. And besides that, he left seventeen years ago, he's an ancient history. "Can we just go through the files again?", I say because I don't want him to say anything else that could hurt me.

He sighs again. "Chris, I'm sorry, I don't have time for that right now". He stopped when he saw the disappointed look on my face. "Why don't you take the files home", he said with a weak smile, "and if you find anything you can show me tomorrow". The look on his face reads _'go ahead kid, you won't find anything'_. He took her files out of one of the drawers and I gave them to me.

"Thank you", I say before turning my back and leaving his office.

Before I go back home I make a stop at the cemetery. I walk among the graves bathed in mid-September's sunlight. Mom's grave is at the back, placed next to her sister's. I read both names. Piper Halliwell and Prudence Halliwell. Next to aunt Prue's grave is is the one that reads the name _'Phoebe Halliwell'_ , I guess she was some great grandma of mine since she died in 1874. Next to mom grave is the one for some guy named _'Wyatt Halliwell'_ who died in 1922. I guess that both of them, Phoebe and Wyatt, belonged to the Halliwell line, maybe that's why their names sound so familiar to me, I probably read them on my family tree once. I looked at mom's grave again, she died this August, in the year 2020. I sit beside her grave and place the files on the ground before me. The wind starts blowing softly and I feel something. It's this weird feeling that I had many times, even before mom died, but much more after her death. I could almost feel her watching me, guarding over me, and I felt safe. Then, that feeling started to fade.

"Mom, I'll find out who killed you", I say to the grave and the crow flies away in response. I often come here to sit next to mom's grave and talk to her. Somehow, I know that she hears me, I feel her presence. Not just on the cemetery, sometimes in the middle of the night when I can't fall asleep I feel her watching over me. And sometimes when I have a headache I feel her presence for just a moment, this warmth in me, and the pain is gone. And sometimes when I cry alone it's like I almost feel her hand on my shoulder or playing with my hair.

"I know the police doesn't believe me, but I will figure it out by myself", I make a promise to her For a moment that feeling comes back and goes away just as fast. "I promise", I whisper.

I go back home and into my room. I spend the rest of the day, as well as most of the night looking through them, going over them a million times, just to find something that I might have missed. Before I fall asleep I feel my mom's hand going through my hair. I look around the room in hopes of seeing her, but there is no one else here.


	5. Chapter 4

I spent the whole morning looking through mom's files, and I found nothing. Everything seems like an accident, but something just isn't clicking. I throw myself back on my bed and take a deep breath. There must be something I'm missing, something that I'm not taking in consideration. I close my eyes and my body goes numb in an instant. That's what happens when you get less than three hours of sleep at night. The clock on my phone shows 5 AM, and I decide there and then that I will at least get some rest. But one sudden thought gets me to jolt upright on the bed.

I am missing something. I have looked through the files millions of times, but I never looked through mom's stuff to try and find the evidence. I walk to the doors of what used to be her room. Part of me wants to go back to bed, fall asleep and forget about all the doors that I couldn't open for so long. Part of me wants to give up, to believe what everyone else thinks, that my mother's death was an accident. But the other part still holds on to the promise that I made yesterday.

When I grab the handle, the cold wave runs through my body and I start sweating from nervousness. Relief comes when I figure out that the doors are locked and that I won't have to face the memories for now. I'm not ready for it. I turn around and go to the bathroom upstairs. I look at myself in the mirror. My usually green eyes are turned red from the tears and tiredness; they stand out from my pale face. My hair is a mess it keeps falling over my eyes every now and then. I know that person in the mirror all too well. I go back to my room and try to catch some sleep, but the sun comes out before I can do so. \

At school is another seemingly endless day filled with pity looks and whispers in the hallways – mainly the ones I walk through. I'm getting sick of sitting in the classes and losing my mind, of only ever talking to Tristan, whom, thanks to our schedules, I don't see that often anyways.

After school, I go to the police station again. I walk to inspector Jacob's office and find him looking through the mess on his table, made out of criminal records.

"Hello inspector", I say walking closer, gripping mom's files with both my hands, "I just stopped by to bring these back".

"Did you find anything?", he asks, taking the files and putting them back in their drawer. He seems really busy and shaken up. I've never seen him like this before.

"What happened?", I say, concerned to see this usually calm man in this state of mind.

"The girl was killed today", he said. I finally recognized the feeling hidden behind his voice and eyes – anger. "She was only fourteen, and the killers sent out threatening messages to many more young girls".

"So, you're looking for them?", I ask, even if I already know the answer.

"Yeah, I am", inspector responds and finally looks up from the records. He looks at me like he had just now realized that I am here. "So, did you find anything?", he asks, even if he is not interested in the answer.

"No", I say quietly, "but I was thinking, maybe you could look through them again".

"I don't really have time for that right now", he says, throwing his hands up in the air and bringing his shoulders back down, releasing all the tension that he'd been holding in for who knows how long.

"I know, but…", I try to say something, but he cuts me off –

"But Chris – no. Please stop", he says leaning over the table. "You're a good kid but this is too much, just stop, for your own sake, just stop chasing these imaginary killers already".

My heart breaks a little bit more. "My mom was killed…", I try to say something, but I don't even know what's left to say. And even if I knew what to say, I couldn't say it over all the tears I'm choking back.

"Chris, if it was a murder, we would've found something out by now, we looked through the files thousands of times and we found nothing that could prove that your mother was murdered", he says raising his voice.

"We haven't looked hard enough", I yell at him in frustration and regret it a second later.

"We did our best", he starts yelling, "it was an accident Chris, and even if it was, catching killer wouldn't bring her back to life, she's gone, so let it go already, there are other cases I have to work on, other lives are on the line, I can't keep wasting my time looking through her case over and over again".

"Fine", I say suppressing the anger that's boiling inside of me, "I'll go now". I storm out of the station and head back home holding back tears the whole way long.

I grab my phone and dial Tristan's number because he said that if I ever needed to talk to someone he'll be there. And now I need to talk to someone. No, not to someone, I need to talk to Tristan, because, even though I'll never admit that to him, I love it when he is around and when he pays attention to me. When he doesn't respond to my phone call I feel the last string inside of me breaking.


	6. Chapter 5

I come home and start crying in an instant. I don't even get to the living room. I just slam the front doors and sit down on the floor leaning my back onto them. I hate this. I hate that this happened to me. I hate mom for dying and leaving me alone, I hate still being hurt by it more than I care to admit. I hate the police for pushing my mom's case away, and I hate myself for starting to believe that they are right. I hate that I'll have to break the promise. I hate Tristan for not being there for me even though she said he would. It's weird how, among all of this, that last thing is hurting me the most.

Tears keep rolling down my cheeks, leaving the burning trails behind them. U hang my head lower and start sobbing. It's getting harder for me to breathe, as with every breath I feel like my chest is being ripped apart. My head feels like it's about to explode. I start banging my fists on the floor in the moment of despair.

It's hard losing somebody you love, but losing yourself to the grief is even worse. I believed that my mother was murdered. I believed that she was a fighter and that some car accident wouldn't be enough to take her away from me. But now I'm starting to doubt that, and I feel bad for it. Not only for starting to doubt my mother but for wishing Tristan was here right now. I feel bad because, even when I feel broken beyond repair, even when I don't know what I believe anymore, I still think of him. And the fact that keeping him in the back of my mind makes me feel just a little bit better to me seems like a betrayal. Thinking about some guy shouldn't make me happy in times like this.

I rise up from the ground, filled with pain and hatred, and walk to the kitchen. To where she used to cook, and where she dreamed of opening her own restaurant, something that will never come to be now that she's not here. I take the look at the old landline phone fixed to the wall. Landlines haven't been in use for years, but she always insisted on keeping it. I felt uncomfortable looking at it. For me to start letting her go, letting her stay in the past, I had to get rid of everything that reminds me of her.

So I start with that damn phone. I slam it multiple times, even though it's destroyed after only one hit. I go on destroying plates and glasses, and everything else that can be broken. And it feels good. It feels good to finally give in to all the pain and anger, to let them absorb me, control me. It feels liberating because I don't have to pretend that I'm fine, that I'm strong. I'm not. For the last few months, I felt like nobody knows me like I don't even know myself. But I always knew my mother knows me. It was almost as she knew parts of me I never realized existed. And now she's gone.

I throw the bowl from the living room table across the room. It hits the wall and the pieces of the shattered glass fill the air for a moment. I wonder how she felt while she was dying. Was she scared? I stopped and tried to imagine her, inside of the burning car with the shattered glass all around her. I take a deep breath and the tears start rolling down my face once again. But these aren't angry tears. No. They are desperate. I don't have any energy left to be angry.

I start kicking the furniture. I just walk across the room aimlessly and kick every piece of furniture on my way, like the sofas are responsible for mom's death. I stop in front of the glass shelf. Something inside of it catches my attention. It's a picture of my mom from her wedding day. My father is next to her and they both look happy. If only she knew then that he'd leave her. I look at them again, not daring to come closer to the photograph. Mom looks beautiful in her wedding dress, and her eyes and smile radiate the happiness. My father looks happy too. They both look so in love. I start wondering about something. Mom never told me why my father left.

I asked her many times when, at least I think that I did, but I guess that she never told me. Or I forgot. It didn't really matter. He was gone, who cares why. But I remember, a few months ago, looking at this same picture, I asked her why he left. She told me that he loved us both so much, but he had to go. I didn't ask for anything else.

I take that picture out and look at for what seems to be hours. I take their whole wedding day album, and I spend the whole night going through it. Photographs are really something special. They keep our memories so we can revisit them anytime we want. I wonder if my father kept photographs of me and mom, wherever he is. Mom kept him, so I guess that she loved him even after he left. But I don't think that I'll ever be able to love him. What kind of person just leaves and never comes back.

As I sit there looking at the pictures one thought strikes my mind. If I could find my father maybe he could help me figure out who killed my mom. I refuse to admit to myself, that, maybe, I like this idea because I want to meet him.


	7. Chapter 6

I spent my weekend going through that album over and over again. I never got tired of seeing them happy. At first, seeing mom hurt me, but I would stare at her face until I couldn't do anything else but smile upon seeing her so cheerful. God knows I tried to find other photo albums, but I couldn't open the doors of her room. I still don't have that kind of strength. So this one album had to be good enough.

At first I ignore my father in the pictures, but in the end, I can't help but look at him. I start wondering what he was like then, and what he's like now, and how it will be when I get to meet him. Then I make a mistake of starting to idealize him. I start creating a picture of father I always wanted him to be, I started making up the reasons he left, the ones so good I'd have to forgive him. I made him good in my head, I gave myself fate in him. But fate is only good if you seek disappointment, and I know that I'll probably end up being devastated when my hopes turn out to be wrong. But I keep doing it anyway, because I lost too much already so, at least, I deserve to have some hope, to have this picture of this perfect father in my mind, at least for a while. So I forgive him for leaving. Not really to him, but to the person I so desperately want him to be.

I keep imagining what he's like, and how it would be when I finally meet him, what I'd say and do. Then, I remember something. I have absolutely no way of finding him. Nor do I have any way of finding out where he is. I have never seen him or heard from him, for all that I know he could be anywhere in the world right now. Hell, for all that I know he could be dead right now. I lay down on my bed and close my eyes. For a moment I feel like every little piece of hope had left me. Except that hope never really leaves us.

Unconsciously, I start digging through every memory I had of him, which isn't all that much. And most of them are faded. One thing comes up in my head - letters. I grab to that last string of hope I suddenly found. Letters could help me find my father.

I run down to the living room. How could I forget about the letters? I remember seeing mom many times, reading them when she thought I wasn't watching. I remember her holding them close to her heart and crying on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night. She kept them in the drawer of the shelf that carried their wedding pictures. It was my luck that they weren't in her room. It's a little weird, I don't remember her reading any letters like those when I was younger. They started coming in maybe a year ago, even less. Maybe they weren't from him. But they had to be, right now, they were my only chance. This February I found one letter from Leo Wyatt, my father, piled up with the other ones that came in that Saturday. I remember how my mother looked at the white envelope and the handwriting on it. It was almost as if she had found a missing part of her soul again.

She was happy and sad at the same time, and I could never figure out which one of those was the cause of her tears. I guess that's how reminiscing works, you remember all the love and happiness that you had, and then, you realize that it's gone.

I open the drawer and the first thing I see is the red shoebox marked 'from Leo'. Now, I feel stupid for never reading them before, it's not like they were hidden. I take out the box and put it on the table, sit on the couch and spend some time eyeing it with suspicion. The fear rose inside of me. The fear of what I might, or might now, find inside. What if I don't find anything that could help me look for Leo? Even worse, what if I find out why he left. And what if his reason is something I couldn't forgive. I don't know what I want his reason to be. I want him to have a reason worth leaving his wife and son for. I want to think that he left because he had to, not because he didn't love us. But, at the same time, I want his reason to be terrible. So I don't have to stop hating him for leaving. Hate is somewhat a defense mechanism - we hate those who hurt us because not doing so is an invitation for more pain. And it's not easy to stop hating someone. It leaves you vulnerable. That why I don't want to stop hating him. Because if I do, I could get hurt if he leaves. If he leaves again. Or even worse, if he never wants to stay in the first place.

I open the box. Inside of it, I find a bunch of white papers, all of them look like they've been scrambled, and probably cried over. I spent the whole Sunday night going through them, and I notice that they all have some things in common. First, they are all super short, only a few sentences. But even those few sentences say more than enough. He doesn't focus on himself, why he had left, where he is, or why he isn't coming back. Even if my parents had problems with their marriage, you couldn't feel this in these letters. He asked how mom and I are doing in every single one of these.

Another thing that I noticed is that they all end up pretty much the same way. In the end, he always tells mom to be careful. It's not that typical 'take care'. No, this is as if he is scared for her. I don't want to get my hopes up with this, but I can't fight it. Maybe someone was after my mother, and, maybe, my father knew who or why. Each letter ends the exact same way: "Love you both, always – Leo".

I stare at that sentence every time my eyes come across it. He says he loves us both. Maybe he had a good reason to leave. Maybe I won't have to hate him any longer. But none of that matters right now. Not until I have the way to find him.

One of the letters has a phone number on it, and under it, he writes: "call me if you ever need anything". I think of calling him right there and then because I do need something. I need him to be here. For a moment I fight the urge to dial the number. I wonder what he'd say if I called him. Maybe he'd think mom's calling him. Maybe he doesn't know that she's gone. Maybe he'd be disappointed when he found out it was me. I leave the paper. I'll figure out how to find him tomorrow, it's late right now anyway, he wouldn't answer my call. I wouldn't even dare to call him, to be honest.

I try to fall asleep but I can't, so I take the letters again. For a brief moment, I feel that something is watching over me, like a guardian angel, and it makes me feel safe.


End file.
